Resilience and hope, tinged with sadness, marked the first anniversary of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terror attacks in Israel at a community gathering at Congregation Beth Chaim in West Windsor Township.
The memorial event drew more than 300 people in an evening of mourning for 1,200 victims – both Jews and non-Jews – who were killed that day. It was organized by the Board of Rabbis of Princeton Mercer Bucks and the Jewish Federation of Princeton Mercer Bucks.
Prayers, music and recollections of trips to the Israeli communities that were devastated by the raid were interspersed throughout the hour-long event. Twelve memorial candles representing the 1,200 victims were lit.
Brian Chevlin, president of the Jewish Federation of Princeton Mercer Bucks’ executive board, asked the attendees to raise their hands if they had lost a family member in the Oct. 7 attack.
Not one raised their hands.
“I should see all of your hands (raised),” Chevlin said. “We all lost family members on Oct. 7. When a Jew is killed specifically because they are a Jew, they are all our family.”
Attendees then raised their hands.
In the aftermath of Oct. 7, Jews are more connected than ever, he said. Israeli Jews need support more than before – whether it is a hug, a shoulder to cry on, or just to let them know their loves ones won’t be forgotten.
While the Israeli Jews need and welcome support, they have also shown resilience in the wake of the terror attacks.
Alexandra Bar-Cohen, who is a dual American-Israeli citizen and whose son serves in the Israel Defense Forces, reminded attendees of the stories of resilience after the Oct. 7 attack.
Resilience takes many forms – from civilians working together to distribute food and clothing and finding housing for the displaced, to providing therapy for the traumatized, Bar-Cohen said.
Resilience is standing in line with one’s child at a light rail station in the exact same spot where eight Israeli Jews were murdered by a terrorist only two days before, including a mother who was shielding her baby, she said.
Resilience is reading social media comments from people from around the world who force the narrative of their own nation’s sins – apartheid, racism, genocide and colonialism – onto Israel’s story without an understanding of history and the facts on the ground. It is realizing that children, too, have read these comments telling them what a Zionist is, Bar-Cohen said.
“It is fighting a just war justly, and holding ourselves accountable and staying true to our Jewish values, despite our enemies around us trying to question our legitimacy and destroy our moral foundation,” she said.
Nevertheless, there is still hope, said Rabbi Jay Kornsgold and Rabbi Adena Blum.
Kornsgold, who is the senior rabbi at Beth El Synagogue in East Windsor Township, shared his recollections of a solidarity trip that he took to Israel in November 2023, one month after the attacks.
The group visited Kfar Aza kibbutz, which was one of the communities that was decimated by the attack. The smell of death and murder still lingered – “a smell that was seared into my memory,” Kornsgold said.
They saw the cars that had been left behind at the Nova music festival, and spoke with the mother of Naama Levy, a female Israel Defense Forces soldier who was taken hostage. They visited the Shura Army Base, which was the main identification station for civilian victims and military casualties, he said.
“We were on the ground for 56 hours,” Kornsgold said. “It was a really, really intense 56 hours. We were there to support the people of Israel, but just as important, we were there to bear witness so we could tell the world what really, truly happened on Oct. 7.”
The words of “Hatikvah,” the Israeli national anthem – “Our hope is not yet lost” – have more meaning than ever, he said. The message of the Israeli national anthem, which was written in 1886, is a yearning for a return to Israel and to establish it as a free and sovereign state.
“We have still not lost hope and we never will,” he said. “Hope is what continues to guide our lives and the lives of our Israeli brothers and sisters and Jews all over the world. It will continue to do so, as it has for thousands of years.”
Like Kornsgold, Rabbi Adena Blum, the senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Chaim, also had visited Israel. She went to Israel to study with other rabbis in July. As she walked on the streets of Jerusalem, she saw posters calling for the return of the hostages and graffiti criticizing the government.
“There were more Israeli flags than I had ever seen before, flying on the streets of Jerusalem,” she said. “But I was particularly struck by the color yellow that has become associated with the hostages.”
There were yellow pins worn on shirts and lapels. Empty plastic yellow chairs dotted the sidewalks, and yellow bumper stickers were slapped onto cars. Hostage Square in Tel Aviv was an “explosion of yellow,” she said.
In Hostage Square, there is an installation by an artist that is called The Tunnel, Blum said. It is a life-size simulation of the tunnels into which the hostages were thrown. But there is a light at the end of The Tunnel as a beacon of hope, represented by two words of Hebrew. The two words at the end of The Tunnel are backlit with yellow light.
Those two words at the end of The Tunnel are the first words in the opening chapter of Genesis, Blum said. The Hebrew words are translated as “and there was light.” In modern Israeli Hebrew, those words can mean “there will be light,” she said.
“Yellow is the color of the sun,” Blue said. “It is the life-giving force that rises every day. By splashing yellow all over Israel, the Jewish people are holding onto hope that there will be light for the hostages and for the State of Israel, and for the broken world of the last 365 days.
“If we can keep hope alive through centuries of exiles and devastating crusades and an inferno of antisemitism, we can hope now.”
